~ Dreaming imaginary guitar noise

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The improvisations vary in dynamics and textures. Weird over the top cacophony and ambient-like drones go hand in hand. His approach is very physical and aggressive. He improvises from a punk rock attitude with advanced technical skills. And above all with lots of power and musical ideas. Very interesting and fresh sounding stuff! Encore! Dolf Mulder on Subrahmanya in Vital Weekly 1152.

Ganga has three pieces on his side of the tape, in which he plays the guitar with objects. I assume this to be an electric guitar. He plays it with great care; hard to say of course what kind of objects are used. Some metal sheets, wiring or wood is placed upon the snares and Ganga adds sparse effects to that and creates some wonderfully great music. It never bursts out, becomes a drag, but it remains playful until the end. Carefully, but not necessarily silent; delicate and sketch like but without the idea something is half finished or missing. Excellent improvised music; now that’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing in concert! (…) Great cassette altogether. Frans de Waard on the split cassette with Tomás Tello in Vital Weekly 1021

After this another change of tack with Arvind Ganga, whose mission is to make thee maddest and most out there of sounds using his guitar and every pedal in the book. Another seemingly quiet unassuming performer, Ganga looked to shock by stealth, as his music is brutal and shredding, albeit pitched at a low decibel range. Watching this show with its parade of ever shifting, ever contradictory sounds (..) moments of the show were ‘pure granular mate’; in fact so tesselate, and unconnected, and cut and paste were the sounds produced, it sounded as if the guitar was falling apart; with each piece clanking to the floor. The gig was extraordinary in sections; and this lack of linearity in the music meant that the audience’s collective head was opened up to just receive whatever sound or conceit was being presented. Towels over the neck? Why not? Just to freak us out entirely, Ganga ended on a beautifully slow, chiming and melodic riff; which dropped its notes like cherry blossom on a garden path. Wow. Richard Foster on a show in Incendiary Mag

“Arvind Ganga plays sometimes with the energy of a punk rock musician (..) but also when it’s a bit more introspective (..) he maintains something that is haunted and strange. This is certainly not easy listening music of any kind, but raw and untamed power stuff. I wonder what the guitar looked like after this was recorded? For those seeking out the more adventurous, noisy bits from the world of improvisation.” Frans de Waard on the Saraswati tape in Vital Weekly 948.

“Crazy happiness!!!”
Girl after show in Bremen

“the six pieces are absolutely great. My favorite is the opener, ‘Raga Gavati’, which has a strange raga/blues like undercurrent. It’s probably where they reach out to something that sounds like a real song – which may not be the reason why I like it, as there is enough beauty to discover here in the other songs too. Ranging from introspective soft to reasonably loud, this is a highly varied disc. Very nice indeed.”
Frans de Waard reviews the cd by Rogier Smal and me in Vital Weekly 895

“This improvised, international quartet of two dancers and two musicians is a fascinating, unpredictable experience, borderline from sound and movement. The body becomes here a musical subject, uttering sounds and knocks, but also the specific played music seems to take shapes, becoming a physical existence, the circulating energy between the dancers, the engine to the action, an equal element in this story. Improvisation emerges as holistic, intense, individual at the same time common experience. The dynamic of the performance emerges from the interactions between sound and movement, it is cumulative and wild, gradually it eludes the artists, in order to hit them with double force. Striking, almost erotic dialogue between sounds and movements is not direct yet it pulsates, transforms, creates anxiety. Also the crash is ambiguous – can be a request for passion, for (self)destruction, for plunge into non-existence. The performers indeed “crash”, pierce to the other side, and the improvisation becomes almost transcendental initiation: a passage to another level of consciousness.”Taniec Polska on the Help Me To Crash performance at the KRoki festival in Krakow, march 2014.

“It’s a fantastic combination of live music with the movement of human bodies. The relationship between sound and movement are very visible – the dancers react to the actions of musicians, and the latter in rekcji improvise their dance. The most exciting moments are those in which the artists come into close contact – sound intensity increases then. Women do not just move in space – seem with each other as different sounds, complementary gestures made ​​by them. Interestingly also look at situations closeness between dancers and musicians – when the artist improvise, coming into contact with the guitar. Help Me To Crash is definitely one of the most interesting proposals for the festival, although quite different from the others. Lets focus more on the individual sequences of motion and sound on individual beats in percussion and a very small gestures. Music moves not only the dancer, but the audience – makes perceptible becomes the rhythm of the human heart, pulsating very strongly.”
Marta Seredyńska on the Help Me To Crash performance at the KRoki Festival in Krakow, march 2014. Translated by Google Translate, full article at the festival website, in Polish.

“Mention must also be made of Every Bolt Rumbling’s “Sunburn,” where micro-slivers of scratchy guitar filaments flicker aggressively for nine minutes. Here and elsewhere, Burning Palms amply rewards one’s attention (…)”
Review of my contribution to the Burning Palms compilation Flaming Pines. Read the full review at textura.org

“There is even the markedly out of place ‘Sunburn’ from Every Bolt Rumbling to finish of the compilation with a quick kick in the ear of markedly ferocious guitar, not quite strutting but definitely in your face which dissolves to a shadow overbuilt by some electronic drop mimicry and discrete electronic abstract art before exploding again and finishing off the hatchet job to the sense of ambience in any merely pleasant atmospheric sense of the word.”
Another review of my contribution to Flaming Pines. Full review at Cyclic Defrost.

“Ganga does all this on guitar, which not only roots the sound in its perhaps most classic setting, but also doubles the sense of time-warping: he’s not only reversing the sound of his guitar, but taking us back in time. Judging by the evidence of this track, which is titled “Life as a Gaucho,” he may in fact be mixing two classic avant-garde techniques, because the crackling, light banging, and bent-wire twisting that slowly consumes the ethereal cush of the backward-masked guitar suggests that he has prepared it, perhaps with the bolts from which he takes his name.”
Mark Weidenbaum from disquiet.com on my track Life as a Gaucho. Full article at disquiet.

“The delicately built, yet powerful psychedelic guitar drones were the basis for an interaction with a high dose of energy. The physical interaction with both the guitar, the knife, the scouring pad, but especially with Melissa Cisneros, sometimes seemed an emotional outburst, usually a theoretical study between the chaotic tapestry of sound and stabbed in bright colors limbs.”
Review of performance with Melissa Cisneros at Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, by Gonzo Circus. Read the full review here (in Dutch).

“Surrounded by some groups of plastic flowers and other atmosphere-enhancing trinkets, Arvind tests his flickering red instrument with a considerable arsenal of objects (a knife, chopsticks) and effects. The result ranges from calm repetitive phrases to Indian-like strumming and peculiar pointillistic escapades. Although the structure of the set is not immediately intuitively clear, this solo concert is without a doubt an atmospheric start of the day.”
Review of show at Gifgrond Tilburg, from VPRO’s 3 voor 12 site. Read the full review here (in Dutch)

“Lekkernijen (…) played an hypnotic set full of guitar virtuosity and exciting rhythms. The next day Arvind introduced a larger audience with his freaky guitar webs.”
Gonzo Circus head editor listed both the set by Lekkernijen and my solo set amongst her personal highlights of SOTU-festival 2012. Full review at Gonzo Circus, in Dutch.

“Arvind’s solo project Every Bolt Rumbling impressed us earlier this year already (..) and also now the rumbling sounds he pulled, or better yet, wrenched out of his guitar, were very impressive.”
Gonzo Circus on my performance at the (h)ear festival in Heerlen, 2011. Full review here.

Arvind Ganga is a guitar player from Den Haag, the Netherlands. He takes a physical approach to guitar playing, employing objects and extended techniques to explore new sonic possibilities. His music draws from influences as diverse as noise and drones, North Indian ragas, experimental rock, and everyday sounds. With free improvisation he brings these together into an intense, loosely structured, chaotic mesh that is bathing in the rays of a deep red sun. Ethereal noise with a punk-improv attitude. Arvind plays solo, improvises with like-minded musicians, and is active in music/dance improvisation. His music took him to play squats, galleries, clubs and festivals from Poland to Portugal, England to Slovenia, Turkey, Chile, Perú, Thailand and Myanmar.